Any other 'PCSO issues' that do not fit in to the other forums. Recruitment of PCSOs, day to day PCSO duties, questions about law, joining the regular police, becoming a special, anything else remotely PCSO orientated!!

Parents at a primary school have been told to stop confronting drivers who park illegally after some motorists became aggressive.The area outside Broke Hall Primary School in Ipswich had been monitored by parents who feared bad parking was putting children in danger.

But Mike Sarbutts, the local PCSO, said he told the group to stop because things had become "a little dangerous".

He said PCSOs would monitor the area and issue fines where necessary.

Tina Skinner, who has helped with the patrols, said illegal parking and people not adhering to road markings had made it dangerous for children, especially in bad weather.

This is one of those problems that will never go away. Where I work every school would like to see us patrolling past when the school opens and closes to deal with parking problems. Unfortunately that isn't possible due to shifts and other commitments. Add to that the problem that I don't have the powers (as far as I can tell) to deal with lines and signs, just obstruction and parking on the pavement. The CEO's, who have the powers, never seem to venture outside the town centre despite requests from myself and the schools.
Obviously, when I do patrol past the school, there's never any problems! Even if I did issue lots of tickets, as soon as I'm not there the problem returns and every September, there'll be a new influx of parents who will need "educating".
One school on my old patch put signs up, gave the children leaflets to take home, had staff out in hi vis vests advising drivers, had the kids design and make posters and take those home, offered to set up walking buses and . . . . nothing really changed.
Most of the time when I saw someone causing an obstruction a polite request resulted in them moving their car. One woman got very irate with me for sticking a ticket on her car, despite the fact that she had parked fully on the pavement blocking a neighbour's drive!
The tickets are only £30 or so and parents seem to think it's worth paying so that their darling little Chlamydia or Halitosis don't have to walk more than a few yards.

If the Sgts saw this as any kind of priority they could direct PCSOs to the schools where this is happening and even go with them to see the extent of the problem

Of course as a Sgt you are going to get the map out and see how many schools on the territory there are, how many? 20?

Well 20 schools is too many to send PCSOs to quite obviously, so more research needs to be done to see which of the 20 need enforcement. Just look at 5 to begin with and a coordinated approach is required.

The CEO's, who have the powers, never seem to venture outside the town centre despite requests from myself and the schools

Your Inspector (if this is to be taken seriously) could easily arrange a meeting with the Council's Parking Manager or whoever it is who is in charge of these CEOs. Just 2 CEOs at one of these schools with just 1 PCSO would be "an enforcement team"

One of the problems in dealing with it is that any presence by CEO's or ourselves would have to be every day, twice a day, for some time to get the message across. I can't see NPT supervision be able or willing to commit to that given the staff shortages and other commitments.

falkor wrote:
If the Sgts saw this as any kind of priority they could direct PCSOs to the schools where this is happening and even go with them to see the extent of the problem

It isn't a problem though, not in the grand scheme of things, not when your sgt is worrying about how to deploy staff to deal with the spike in burglaries and car thefts.
I think if most of the public were given a choice between us doing burglary patrols and school parking they'd choose the former, and so would I.

Also, I may get shot down but who cares. People who ring in to complain about parking need to get a grip. It's a problem for half an hour in the morning and half an hour in the evening, and a problem you could have forseen before moving next door to a primary school.....
I'd also be interested to know how many accidents there actually are, the way I see it, cars blocking one side of the road is an excellent way of slowing everyone down. A kid getting hit by a car creeping along at 5 miles an hour is going to fair a lot better than one belting down at 30.